Last summer it was mentioned to me that plants, as with new fish, need to be quarantined so parasites would not be introduced into the pond. How do you do this for water hyacinths in particular? Thanks
Last summer it was mentioned to me that plants, as with new fish, need to be quarantined so parasites would not be introduced into the pond. How do you do this for water hyacinths in particular? Thanks
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https://www.thepondoutlet.com/plant-...FcVXDQodIcALCw
Never used it tho.
Some have also used pp.
Last edited by Jojoartie; 02-25-2017 at 08:29 PM.
And some have used a bleach mixture.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
Thank you Jo, Rich, Steve and Kevin for your responses.
I stopped adding plants too, because after a 20 ppm treatment for 24 hours, I had leeches and flatworms living happily. If these creatures can live through it, so can others, not to mention inside of the leeches, snails, and flatworms! Bleaching is harsh on the plants, and many don't make it. The best way to get plants is in bulb form, where they go through a drying out process. Even so, you just need to be prepared to treat for a parasitic outbreak. My biggest worry would be viral, as this is virtually impossible to treat, hence bleach, or drying out.
My 2 cents also!!!
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Thank you for responding mntsaki. Will skip adding water hyacinths this year. I have another question. Presently I have several water lilies that were in the pond last year that are on the bottom of the pond now. I did want to keep them to give the fish some shelter even tho the pond is netted. Those should be alright now, right? But I do know that I any plant can be a future host for parasites. So might need to rethink that too. It's also been mentioned to do a spring treatment of Proform C with Prazi added to the last treatment. Is that correct? And in NJ where their water temp today was 48* what constant temp would I want to do it at? Sorry for so many questions. Just want to be on the safe side since this is the first spring with this pond. Thank you again.
Thanks Kevin. Setting up the filter with Matala this year so I hope filtration is improved. But last year I had tons of the hyacinths to the degree I had to keep taking them out of the bio and give them to the fish and my ducks to eat. They looked great, but admittedly they did not bloom -like in my frog pond. I was mainly concerned about the introduction of a parasite. So I think I'm going to steer clear of them this year to be on the safe side.
I personally dont like to do any treatments unless i see something going on. Then doing scrape/scope. This is the reason salt no longer works. The bugs have built up a resistance. If the plants are in the pond and have been there all winter just pull them out when you do your spring clean up/turn on and hose them off with water, tops and bottoms of leaves and roots. Divide and repot anything that is potted and also spray roots and substrate you are using in pots. That should be fine.
It has been my understanding that the parasites have to have a host to survive. Having plants in fishless ponds for a time will provide no host for the fish type parasites. For many of the parasites the life cycle is a matter of a few days, All are temperature dependent. Some parasites like ich have an egg phase and the eggs do not need a host because they are not feeding, so the isolation time needs to be longer than the hatch rate of the eggs, where the new life form must find a host fairly soon or die. I would think that 10 days at 70+ degree temperatures would take care of all parasites, but for insurance give 2 weeks or more.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
I make sure to buy safe plants like from our Matherfish. Any other plants I add get a little bleach in a barrel and left for a week after rinsing/